There can be but one conclusion from the foregoing discussion, namely, that our foreign-born residents add to the burden of public and private relief an amount largely out of proportion to their relative numbers in the general population, and that this burden is likely to be an increasing one. Mr. Prescott F. Hall publishes an estimate that the total annual cost of caring for the foreign-born poor of New York State alone equals $12,000,000.[290] It is worth noting that while the expense of this burden of relief is borne by the public and by benevolent individuals, the real benefit goes to the employer of cheap labor. He secures his labor at a wage which will barely maintain its efficiency for a period of years, without any provision for the future, and when that period is over, and the laborer is no longer an efficient producer, he is cast aside with absolutely no responsibility resting on the employer for his future support or care.[291] At the customary rate of wages there seem to be but two alternatives open to the workingman’s family—either to live on a frightfully low standard, and make some slight provision for the future, or to live on a somewhat higher standard and run the risk of dependence in old age or misfortune.[292] It is obvious that both of these are unqualifiedly bad. As to the causes of this abnormal amount of pauperism Miss K. H. Claghorn makes the following statement: “While it is plain enough that foreign immigration has some connection with the problem of pauperism since common observation and all the statistics available unite in showing that the majority of the recipients of our charity, public and private, are of foreign birth, it is equally certain on the other hand that pauperism is not something that the immigrant brings with him, but is the result of a considerable period of life and experiences here.”[293] This opinion, coming from so high a source, emphasizes two facts—first, that it is not altogether, if at all, the immigrant’s “fault” that there is so much pauperism among this class. Those who have been paupers before, or seem likely to become so, are refused admission. Second, that there is something radically wrong in the industrial adjustment of the United States when so large a number of foreigners, who come here primarily for motives of financial betterment, and who are not by nature thriftless, are unable during a long period of faithful labor to lay up anything against the period of helplessness. We cannot escape the accusing finger which points toward the United States, demanding recognition of the fact that we are by no means prepared to accept the tremendous responsibility of admitting unlimited numbers of aliens whose entire future destiny depends upon the soundness of our political, social, and economic fabric.